I was 18 years old,
living in Bucharest, Romania. My mother had died a year before. My
father had a new relationship with a loving woman - Eliza.

That night when it first
started, Eliza and I were home, chatting. At first there was tightness
in my chest. A feeling of fear – like a cold, tight grip in my abdomen –
had been with me for a while. I had no name for it. To me it was “being
afraid without knowing why I was afraid”. The chest tightness was
followed by tightness in my head and throat. It felt as if there was
something inside my head expanding, wanting to explode. The blood
vessels around my throat got congested, and my heart started racing. I
thought I was having a heart attack. It felt like I was dying.

As soon as my father
arrived, he called an ambulance. The heart palpitations lasted for a
while. I tried to talk, but the teeth were chattering so intensely, that
words came out unintelligibly. My entire body shook and trembled. By the
time the ambulance arrived, it had all calmed down, and I was feeling
better. The paramedics mentioned the words – new to me – “panic, or
anxiety attack”. What was the cure? They shrugged.

Throughout the following
years, anxiety played softly, in the background, and at times trumpeted
into other panic attacks. I had left my native country to meet new
growth and challenges in a different culture, different climate. I was
finding my way through life without a manual of instructions. Bouts of
depression alternated with anxiety, and all my doctor could do was
prescribing pills. Neither pills, nor talk therapy made a positive
difference for me. At times I thought I was going crazy: the anxiety
attacks would “strike” at times of rest, either at night, or when at
home, alone. Once I was at the movies, when I felt my heart racing and
the chest and head tighten. I ran to the washroom telling harsh words to
myself. Wasn’t I capable of enjoying a simple pleasure like watching a
movie? Did I have to feel sick just when I was at play? What was wrong
with me?

Then, in January 1999, I
started seeing Ofra for a different breed of therapy sessions. After an
initial session of Foot Analysis, I embarked on a journey of weekly
sessions of holistic reflexology, energy therapy and body-mind
techniques with this little woman with a B.A. in Biology and Genetics. I
had no concept for what she was doing, and her guidance while I was on
her treatment table, was like nothing else I had heard before.

Ofra would find an entry
point – physical or emotional – to trigger the emotion “du jour”. The
fear was the first one to come up. I was instructed to feel it, pay
attention to where I felt it in my body, and breathe into it. What it
did was allowing a completion of the unresolved emotional business from
the past. The process was far from comfortable, but the peace I would
find after each session was incredible. And it would last, and it would
grow. At first I resisted the process. I was so used wanting things to
be different than they are, that I was protesting: “But it hurts!” I
would complain to Ofra. To which she would reply without emotion: “So
hurt!” “Allow yourself to feel what is”.

The first session, as the
energy of fear was allowed to “do its thing”, took me through a stage of
intensifying fear, then a peak of the fear, all through which I was
breathing consciously and allowing my body to move as it wanted to; and
then a stage of letting go, of relaxation. For the first time in my life
I learned that it was OK to feel fear. Also, for the first time in my
life, I learned to let the fear go – this was the relaxation stage. By
the end of the session, I was calmer than before the session, and calmer
than I had felt in a long time. Ofra would cover me with a sheet and
leave the room for five to ten minutes. Those moments alone, cocooned
under the covers, reminded me of my early childhood, feeling safe in my
mother’s arms. It felt good. The good feeling stayed with me, and in the
big picture, in the long run, it freed so much energy for me that I
surprised myself and everyone else who knew me, by taking some very
brave action in my life.

The energy of fear
changed so much since that day when I was 18. My understanding of what
fear is, its purpose and the energy-mindful way to address it has helped
me both in my own life, and in my healing practice. As the Law of
Attraction would have it, many of my clients come to me with problems of
unresolved fears and anxiety. Having experienced tremendous healing
myself, I understand where each person is, and I know from first-hand
experience that healing is possible. With the energy therapy work, fear
doesn’t disappear completely from a person’s life. If a hungry lion
would chase me in the jungle, I would be feeling fear and run for my
life (not sure about the “fight” part – with me it would likely be
“flight”). But in this day-to-day life, the intensity of the fear and
the frequency of its occurrence have changed, and are changing.
Sometimes people come to see me before surgery; after our work together,
they go to the hospital in a state of peace and trust. Research has
proven that a relaxed state increases a patient’s chances for the
surgery to succeed, and speeds up recovery.

Artists often find that
the block to their creativity is often an unresolved worry or fear. When
resolved, they re-connect to the source of their inspiration, and
creativity flows.

Under the layers of
unresolved fear, lies pure Joy. I often see a person clearing fear on
the treatment table, and then going into a healthy bout of belly
laughter. I used to do the same with Ofra. This was the time I’d tell
her my best jokes.

One way I regard fear,
which I like sharing with my students and clients, is as a shadow on the
wall. Placing my hands between the lamp and the wall, I pretend that the
shadow formed is a threatening monster. Even though it is a valid human
experience – everybody can see shadows! – Shadow itself is not real.
Light is real, it is made of particles, photons, energy, something! The
shadow is made of nothing; you can’t take it to the lab and analyze it.
It is merely an obstruction of the light. If we regarded fear similarly,
as an obstruction of love, we would relate to it differently, would we
not?

I see fear as energy,
seeking to prompt us to take action. In other words, fear can be
addressed as information. All that information needs is our attention:
the only thing we’ve always denied it, in our reactive attempt to avoid
it. Give it your attention, the message will be delivered, and the
messenger on its way out! Part of the session for my clients is often a
message delivered from their subconscious mind into their awareness,
about some change they need to take. The healing becomes learning, and
learning expands us. Addressing the fears becomes a holistic, spiritual
way to live with mindfulness, allowing what is, and living courageously
and inspired.